When I was being taught about photography early on I was taught to expose so that you had detail in the shadows. This was a general rule and as with general rules they must at times be broken. But when? Sometimes we expose in order to silhouette our subjects. Sometimes this works well and other times it just sort of gimmicky. Today when I photographed Jesse sitting on the dock at The Meadville Tribune I know it was going to be tough to keep detail in the highlights and the shadows. Jesse is very dark and he was sitting with his face in the shadows. I exposed for the highlights because in digital, if you lose the highlights they are nearly impossible to get back--similar to slide film. I wasn't sure if I'd get any detail in Jesse's face. When I first called up the picture I didn't think I cared, it looked pretty cool without the detail, but part of me thought I needed detail in the shadows so I began to bring out what detail I could with my limited understanding of photoshop and levels, I think overall I still hear my early teachers telling me to work on my exposures and really prefer the details in the shadows and seeing Jesse's face, but I thought it might be interesting to see them together to see the difference, especially for my students now who I tell all the time to get details in highlights and shadows. Meadville Tribune photograph toned two ways by Richard Sayer.